The Gettysburg Historical Journal

Certifying Widowhood: Lizzie Booth and the Making of Black Widow Pension Entitlement during the Civil War

Michael B. Cox II — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:47:37 PDT

This article argues that Mary Elizabeth Wayt Lanning Booth, most commonly known as Lizzie Booth, played a decisive and underrecognized role in securing pension rights for Black widows during the Civil War. In the wake of her husband’s death at the Fort Pillow Massacre in 1864, Booth personally lobbied President Abraham Lincoln and Senator Charles Sumner for pension reform, catalyzing the passage of the Supplemental Pension Act. This reform permitted formerly enslaved women—whose marriages had been deemed extralegal—to prove their unions through eyewitness testimony and access federal benefits. Drawing primarily on pension files, the article demonstrates that while the Act marked a crucial first step toward racial equality within the pension bureaucracy, it fell short of ensuring universal, sustained access due to bureaucratic delays, racialized definitions of marriage, and discriminatory enforcement. Nevertheless, by securing the extension of pension access to Black widows, Booth enabled them to assert claims to citizenship within the federal bureaucracy, transforming their relationship with the state and advancing civil rights during and after the Civil War.

Soviet Sympathies On-Screen: Cinema as a Cultural Apparatus in the Stalinist Era

Anne E. Bolenbaugh — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:47:32 PDT

The Stalinist era of the Soviet Union (1924-1956) is marked by its incredible pace of forced industrialization, extreme cultural repression, and an atmosphere of immense fear and paranoia, resulting in the Great Terror. Among the various mechanisms to enforce the state program, cinema offers a unique insight into specific state ideologies at key points in Stalin’s regime. By examining the three key phases of the Stalinist era consisting of his initial years, the Second World War, and the years of High Stalinism, it is possible to trace notable shifts in the Soviet authority’s approach to cinema as a propagandistically advantageous resource. The developing industrial conditions of the film industry, experimentation in plot organization, and use of quintessential stylistic techniques contributed to the varying degrees of success within Stalinist cinema across the three main phases of the regime. The robust nature of the state’s control over the film industry proved to both aid in the development of and restrict the ultimate success of a Soviet cinematic apparatus.

Little Better Than One of the Savages

Michael J. Aaron — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:47:27 PDT

Western Pennsylvania was one of the earliest frontiers in US history, but is often overlooked and oversimplified. The frontier just west of the Appalachian Mountains was a complicated place of settler and Native American interaction, varied permanent settlement, and wilderness. The journal and letters of Major Ebenezer Denny show a complicated frontier of danger, wilderness, and chaos that is often not seen within historical views of the region. Through Denny and other Western Pennsylvania settlers, this paper complicates the common view of the Western Pennsylvania as a simply and quickly colonized region by showing the area as an unsettled frontier with ambiguous power relations and more interaction with Native Americans after the frontier supposedly had moved farther west.

Featured Piece

Michael Birkner — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:47:22 PDT

This year’s featured piece was written by Michael J. Birkner, Professor of History Emeritus. Professor Birkner taught classes on 20th-century American history, Australian History, the Historical Methods course, and the senior capstone class, Eisenhower & His Times. His research and scholarship focus on 19th- and 20th-century American History. On behalf of the 2025-2026 staff of The Gettysburg Historical Journal, we want to congratulate Professor Birkner on his esteemed career and recent retirement!

Letter from the Editors

Madeleine G. Ulman et al. — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:47:17 PDT

We are proud to present the twenty-fifth edition of The Gettysburg Historical Journal. The journal embodies the History Department’s dedication to diverse learning and excellence in academics. Each year, the journal publishes the top student work in a range of topics across the spectrum of academic disciplines with different methodological approaches to the study of history. This year, The Gettysburg Historical Journal received a plethora of submissions from both Gettysburg College students and other students around the country. The works accepted this semester focus on the diverse relationships between individuals and the state throughout history, spanning from the western frontier of Pennsylvania in the late 1700s to 1860s America in the midst of the Civil War.

Front Matter

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:47:13 PDT

Front matter of the Gettysburg Historical Journal 2026

Gettysburg Historical Journal 2026

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:47:09 PDT

Complete issue of the Gettysburg Historical Journal 2026

Perpetuating a “Frontier Myth:” The Long Winter and a “Weather Frontier”

Olivia N. Taylor — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:46 PDT

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series has long been the subject of scholarly debate regarding its role in shaping perceptions of the American frontier. The Long Winter (1940) is a key text within these discussions, particularly when focusing on how the environment serves as a historical actor in shaping frontier experiences. Traditional frontier narratives, such as those proposed by Frederick Jackson Turner, emphasize individualism and perseverance in the face of adversity. While Wilder’s work reflects these ideals, it also reveals the harsh realities of environmental challenges on the frontier, particularly through its depiction of the winter of 1880-81 in the Dakota Territory.

Through an analysis of The Long Winter, this paper explores how Wilder’s narrative both upholds and complicates the “frontier myth.” Scholars such as Anne K. Phillips and Amanda Zastrow argue that Wilder’s work challenges male-dominated frontier narratives by highlighting women’s perspectives and resilience. Meanwhile, Anita Clair Fellman critiques the series for perpetuating an idealized version of self-sufficiency, questioning its historical accuracy. Richard Maxwell Brown’s concept of the “weather frontier” provides a framework for understanding how climate and natural disasters played a defining role in frontier life. By contextualizing Wilder’s portrayal of the 1880-81 winter within historical accounts and newspaper reports, this study illustrates how environmental hardship shaped frontier settlers’ experiences and survival strategies. The repeated blizzards, supply shortages, and reliance on communal ingenuity underscore the precariousness of frontier life.

Defying Space: Enslaved Social Lives in a Low-Density Slave Society, New England, 1700-1776

Alex Meagher — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:41 PDT

This article examines how the enslaved constructed their social lives in the low density slave society of colonial New England, with a particular view towards whether those social lives can be classed as resistance. Using Barbados as a comparison point, the article establishes how New England was unique as a New World slave society and examines the impact of those differences on the social lives of the enslaved, including their courtship, marriage, and family formation, their fraternization, and their communal and ritual lives. It takes the view that through selective compliance, the enslaved were able to earn limited respect within white society and build independent social lives outside of it, both of which can be considered forms of resistance to the institution of slavery.

SPUTNIK: Starting Gun of the Space Race

Samuel K. Lavine — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:37 PDT

The launch of the Soviet Satellite SPUTNIK is widely regarded as the start of the Space Race. It thrust the issue of space exploration into the national spotlight and brought about issues that defined the final years of the Eisenhower administration. LIFE Magazine and other American news publications covered the Space Race and the fledgling years of the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). LIFE Magazine from 1957 to 1961 covered the American reaction to SPUTNIK and served as a primary platform of news coverage about the Space Race. During this time the Eisenhower administration sought to accomplish two goals. The first was to ease panic amongst the American public denouncing the existence of a “Missile Gap” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and reassure the Americans of their superiority over the Soviet Union. The second goal was to use NASA to prepare the U.S. for an era of space exploration in a transformational age.

At the Bottom of the Barrel: Rum’s Influence on Those Who Made It

Camryn Counsil — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:32 PDT

This paper examines the British Empire’s increasing rum production across their colonies in the West Indies during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Governmental officials, advertisers, and other influential citizens sought to establish rum as the beverage of choice among British society because of its economic, political, and social sensibilities. This growing enthusiasm established negative consequences, affecting the standards of living and social dynamics within communities of enslaved laborers on Caribbean plantations.

Featured Piece: Be a Sankofa People

Scott Hancock — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:28 PDT

This year's featured piece was written by Scott Hancock, an associate professor in the History department. Professor Hancock teaches classes on African American history, law and society, and how the two interact with each other. His research focuses on African American experience from the mid-seventeenth century through the Civil War.

Letter from the Editors

Emily B. Suter et al. — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:24 PDT

We are proud to present the twenty-fourth edition of The Gettysburg Historical Journal. The journal embodies the History Department's dedication to diverse learning and excellence in academics. Each year, the journal publishes the top student work in a range of topics across the spectrum of academic disciplines with different methodological approaches to the study of history. The Gettysburg Historical Journal received a plethora of submissions from both Gettysburg College students and other students around the country. The works accepted this semester focus on the diverse experiences of American throughout history, spanning from living on the western frontier in the 1880s to the space race of the 1950s.

Front Matter

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:21 PDT

Front Matter of the Gettysburg Historical Journal 2025

Gettysburg Historical Journal 2025

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 14:21:18 PDT

Complete Issue of the Gettysburg Historical Journal 2025

The Americans With Disabilities Act in the Borderlands

Theodore J. Szpakowski — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 08:57:24 PDT

During the twentieth century, the United States federal government claimed to be working in partnership with Indigenous governments. However, it neither sufficiently ensured that Indigenous people were protected to the same extent as settlers nor fully released Indigenous governments to create their own protections. The results of this dynamic can be seen through examining civil rights legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Although settler disability historians have tended to view the ADA as a unifying success, it did not legally or culturally account for disabled Indigenous people living on Indigenous land within the United States.

What They Sang: The Religious Roots of Spirituals and Blues

Carly A. Jensen — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 08:57:20 PDT

This paper investigates the religious themes in spirituals, the religious songs sung by enslaved people in America, and the blues, a predominantly Black genre from the early Twentieth century. This work aims to answer if spirituals influenced the lyrics and musical structure of the blues or if the two genres developed independently. The paper covers the origins of spirituals and the blues, their appearance in the WPA Slave Narratives, and concludes with a close analysis of the religious influence on the work of famous Blues artists. Primary sources referenced in this project include the WPA Slave Narratives, famous Blues songs, Library of Congress recordings, lyrics from early spirituals, and several secondary sources. A thorough thematic investigation of these sources revealed a clear connection between the two genres, as both take a strong influence from Christianity. Additionally, spirituals and blues follow similar lyrical patterns. While spirituals emerged as a way to reckon with the horrors of slavery, the blues spoke to the reality of sharecropping and poverty. Religion remained a constant theme throughout this evolution, with prevalent references to God, Heaven, Hell, and the Devil in both genres. Both spirituals and blues speak to Southern Black Americans' resistance, achievements, and spirituality.

In Defense of the “Peculiar Institution”: The Influence of European Scientific Racism on the Confederacy

Guillem Colom — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 08:57:15 PDT

Through the antebellum period and American Civil War, American and European race theorists exchanged ideas through correspondence and scientific explorations asserting the truth of scientific racism. Scientific racist beliefs posited the natural superiority of white people and inferiority of Black people based on what these theorists claimed were innate biological characteristics, and these beliefs served as a critical linkage between Europe and the United States. Utilizing correspondence and journal entries, this paper shows that this exchange of scientific racist ideas significantly influenced the Confederacy’s political thought and policy positions, especially foreign relations, through the Civil War. Through the work of propagandist Henry Hotze, the Confederacy sought to gain support among the European public, particularly in Great Britain, by promoting scientific racist ideas justifying the Confederacy’s defense of slavery. Such ideas were assimilated from American race theorists like Samuel George Morton and Samuel Cartwright, along with European race theorists like Arthur de Gobineau. This paper ultimately demonstrates the historical continuity of racist beliefs that unite actors across borders to uphold white supremacy into modern times.

Featured Piece: The Historians of TikTok

Hannah Greenwald — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 08:57:11 PDT

This year’s featured piece was written by Hannah Greenwald, an assistant professor in the History department. Professor Greenwald teaches classes on Latin American history, Atlantic history, and borderlands history. Her research focuses on Indigenous resistance, settler colonialism and nation-state formation.

Letter from the Editors

Carly A. Jensen et al. — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 08:57:07 PDT

We are proud to present the twenty-third edition of The Gettysburg Historical Journal. The journal embodies the History Department’s dedication to diverse learning and excellence in academics. Each year, the journal publishes the top student work in a range of topics across the spectrum of academic disciplines with different methodological approaches to the study of history. This year, The Gettysburg Historical Journal received a plethora of submissions from both Gettysburg College students and other students around the country. The works accepted this semester focus on the diverse experiences of Americans throughout history, spanning from the American Civil War to the Americans with Disabilities Act.